Daemonium
by Colder than Blue
Summary: Not even the Ultimate Lifeform is safe from beings not of this world. Shadow is dragged down into the Underworld by an ancient entity. He must find a way back to the world of the living and somehow defeat the evil spirit. Rated M for gore in later chapters.
1. Prologue

Shadow swung his legs over the side of the bed, rubbing his red-streaked arms in an attempt to warm himself. He was used to being a little chilly at night and when he woke up. After all, he'd always slept with the covers off, in case an intruder broke in, and he needed to get up quickly without getting caught in the blankets. This was too cold, though. _Way_ too cold. It was still dark, as well. He took a glance at the digital clock on the nightstand next to his bed. 12:33 AM shined in a bright red through the darkness. He let out an irritated sigh, and his breath turned to white mist in the bedroom's frigid air. Something definitely wasn't right. It was late April; it shouldn't be below-freezing, especially inside. He stood up and made his way to the door leading to his living-room/kitchen, searching for what exactly was amiss. The only thing he could think of that could cause the freezing temperature would be if a certain blue menace had broken into his apartment somehow and fooled around with the air conditioner, in which case, he would _kill_ said imbecile. He would've heard it running, though, but there were no sounds, save for his footsteps. He reached the door and turned the brass knob. It creaked open eerily to reveal a somewhat large, dark room.

Moonlight shone from the window on the right wall, casting shadows on the barely furnished room. He took a few steps forward and pushed the door behind him, causing it to close with a thud. After that, the unsettling, deafening silence returned. Red eyes scanned the area, the air thick with tension. Something was there; he could _feel_ it. Warily, he stepped over to the small end table by his couch. On the table was a stone, trapezoidal object about the size of his hand. He picked it up, turning it around in his grip and observing it. He was drawn to it, just like he had been before when he spotted it at the G.U.N. base he was working at. Speaking of which, they were probably searching for it. He hadn't told anyone. He just took it and ran, and he wasn't sure why. It was like it was calling to him, and when it had been at the base, he could sense a small amount of Chaos Energy in it, as if it was a very weak Chaos Emerald. He also remembered becoming slightly weaker when he picked it up the first time. It didn't seem to be giving off Energy now; although, he could sense some in the room, other than his own, of course.

He turned the object over and noticed ancient writing on the bottom. The text was in the old tongue the echidnas had used. G.U.N. had become more interested in the Mystic Ruins since uncovering some of the professor's old research files and the like, so they required Shadow to learn the language, since he could learn much more quickly than any of the human agents they had employed. He wasn't fluent in it, but he could understand quite a bit of it. He eyed the writing carefully, attempting to make out what it said. He stood straight up, his eyes wide and alert. Something was behind him, _directly_ behind him.

"**My thanks for releasing me.**"

Whatever it was, it hissed like a damn snake. Shadow spun around almost as fast as he could run and came face to face with.. nothing. Absolutely Nothing. Was he losing it? No. He could sense it. It had to be there. His gaze darted around the room, scanning for any movement at all. Once again, nothing. He was the only living thing in the apartment. Another sigh escaped his lips. Perhaps he really was going insane.

"Shadow!"

It was a young girl's voice this time. In fact, it sounded just like.. _Maria?_ No. There's no way. She had been dead for over fifty years now. Besides, he'd hallucinated about her before-

"Shadow! Please, help!"

The voice was far more desperate and distressed now. He knew it was just his imagination, but he couldn't help but feel the urgent need to help her. It wouldn't hurt if he just wandered in the direction the voice was coming from, would it? He placed the object he was holding back on the table, and began walking to the left end of the room, where the voice had come from. "Maria..?"

"Shadow!" She sounded happy now, and as if she was directly in front of him.

"**Shadow!**" Came the deep, hissing voice again.

His eyes widened, startled, and, before he could even think, something swiped him across his face. His head whipped to the side from the impact. He brought his hand up to his cheek, causing where he had been struck to sting. He pulled his hand away and by what little lighting the room had, he could see blood staining his glove. _That_ he couldn't have imagined. His ears twitched when he heard the room fill with the menacing laughter of the invisible being.

"**It seems you produce more Energy when you are injured and upset.**"

He glanced around the room, searching frantically for the other being, despite knowing he couldn't see it. "Where are you? Show yourself, coward!"

"**I'm right here, **_**Shadow**_**.**" It spoke his name with venomous malice.

He felt its fetid breath on the back of his neck and an invisible force squeeze his throat. He choked. His head spun, and he couldn't move. He could feel himself getting weaker, his Chaos Energy depleting. _What the hell is going on?_ He could've sworn he saw the hollow eyes and head of a goat-like creature, and everything around him turned to a void of cold blackness. There was no light at all. No sounds or smells. He felt the grip on his neck vanish, and he simply floated there, in the frigid emptiness for what felt like an eternity. He couldn't move or talk. He couldn't think. He could do nothing but simply stay there, existing. Then the darkness began to fade away, and the lights blinded and engulfed him in a warm embrace.

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**A/N:**** Ooh, he saw the lights~! XD There's not much to say here, except for the fact that I have an f'ed imagination, but I think that's pretty obvious. And of course, I don't Sonic or any related characters, and never will own them.**


	2. Welcome to Hell

The lights had become one very bright one light, and the gentle, warm embrace was becoming a little _too_ warm now. He couldn't tell what was going on. Were those screams he heard in the distance? He wasn't sure. He could've sworn he heard something crackling, like a flame, too. Come to think of it, that light looked quite a lot like a huge fire. He swallowed, trying to soothe his dry, burning throat. It was so hot, and his whole body, inside and out, was beginning to hurt. He must've been lying on his stomach; he could feel something hard and uneven under his abdomen and chest.

The pain, the burning, was strong enough now to cause him to wince, and he felt as if his blood was boiling in his veins. He was also beginning to smell something rather unpleasant. He recognized the odor, but he just couldn't quite place what it was. It didn't matter, though. He needed to get up. He wasn't certain as to what was going on, but all of a sudden, he felt extremely unsafe. He wasn't the only being there, _that_ he was sure of. He tried to push himself off whatever he was lying on, and discovered his body felt like it was the weight of a car. Shaking, he barely got an inch off the ground before flopping back down to the hard surface in defeat.

Pained tears began to form in the corners of his eyes before he squeezed them shut from the rapidly intensifying agony he was in. _Oh, god, __**please**__ make it stop!_ He just couldn't take it! He writhed and trembled violently, clawing at the ground beneath him. He needed to make the pain subside somehow; he was going to lose his mind if it didn't stop. He managed to pry his eyes open and discovered just why he was in such pain. He knew what that smell was now, too. It was the stench of flesh burning, _his_ flesh. He screamed. He had to get up. He needed to find water, roll on the ground, something, _anything_ to make it stop. But he could barely move. He was restricted to simply lying there, writhing and screaming. He could do naught but burn to death.

What felt like an endless amount of time passed, and nothing changed. He still laid there, struggling in searing agony. At this point, he welcomed death, but it never came. He wasn't immortal. He should've died by now. He began to wonder. Had he already died? Was he.. in Hell? He had never believed in such superstitious things. There was simply no solid proof behind its existence, but this.. place he was in now, it fit the description of what Hell was supposedly like. Was it even possible? Is this what he would be trapped in for eternity? The thought filled him with a hopelessness even more unbearable than the flames eating away at his raw flesh. No. He wouldn't think like that. This wasn't his end. He would get out of this, _somehow_. He felt the presence again, but this time, he recognized it. It was that _thing_ that had been in his apartment. He could sense its Chaos Energy, something he was quite deficient in at the moment; it seemed to have gotten stronger, as well.

The fire vanished instantly, leaving the horizon nothing but a pitch black void. The temperature plummeted quickly to below-freezing, just like it had been in his apartment. The cold air stung at the trembling mass of singed, bloody flesh that was now his body, and each shallow, shaky breath he dared to draw in burned his tender throat and lungs to the point of nearly bringing tears to his eyes. A soothing, tingling sensation engulfed him, and he looked to his arm to find his charred skin rapidly healing, right before his eyes. His dark pelt was growing back unnaturally fast, as well. His body healing and the pain subsiding, he slowly stood up, his legs still somewhat shaky. He briefly wondered how he was able to recover so quickly. It was true that he could heal much faster than the average person, but he couldn't heal _that_ quickly. Perhaps it was due to that thing's Chaos Energy? No. He wouldn't be able to use the Energy of another living being without said other being allowing it. He shook his head. It didn't matter right now. What _did_ matter, however, was that there was another, unfriendly -to say the least- presence in the void with him. Actually, now that he was able to concentrate, he could've sworn he sensed _two_ sources of Chaos Energy somewhere in the vast darkness. He concentrated on the void's Energy as much as he could without letting his guard down, trying to pinpoint the exact location of whatever was emitting said energy. From what he could tell, one source seemed to be getting weaker and fading away, while the other only grew stronger. The stronger of the two moved from its position so quickly, he lost track of it momentarily. However, he soon found he didn't need to focus in order to find it, as it, whatever it was, was standing directly in front of him, staring at him with its hollow, unblinking gaze.

It exhaled a gust of its foul, deathly breath on him and reached out. The creature began raking both sets of its jagged talons down his freshly-healed arms.

His shock wore off as soon as the creature's claws made contact with his skin. He immediately took action and rammed into the monstrosity, using his shoulder. He had felt the impact with the larger, vile beast, but found that it had disappeared. For a split second, he lost track of the creature.

Until it harshly gripped the quills on his back, and tore them off, taking bits of skin and blood with them.

His face contorted into a grimace, and he managed to bite back a cry of pain. Despite the searing pain where his quills used to be, he spun around and kicked the beast, striking it in the side of its off-white skull.

Its head tilted slightly upon the impact, but it otherwise remained completely still and expressionless, staring down at the injured hedgehog before it.

He growled, frustrated, and thrust his fist into its bony chest, piercing through its pallid skin and flesh. No blood spilled, and he was surprised to find that not even the being's innards held any warmth. A cold wetness was all he could feel in its chest cavity.

Still nothing. The being's face -if you could even call it that- remained blank. Perhaps it couldn't express emotion. On second thought, it probably didn't have any feelings in the first place.

Shadow studied it, red eyes locked on to the skeletal form, waiting for any sign of the attack he knew had to be coming. Several, what felt like, year-long seconds ticked away, neither creature daring to even flinch.

It made the first move, lashing out at his short, furred form.

He tore his fist out from its chest and rolled backwards, avoiding the attack just in time to see its massive claws swipe past his face.

It had missed him by centimeters.

Before it had time to recompose itself, Shadow rammed into the beast, knocking it over on to its back. He quickly threw his arm up into the air, and bright Chaos Energy collected in his hand. What he was about to do was risky. He was running low on Chaos Energy, and, despite being injured, it wasn't regenerating as fast as it should. In fact, it wasn't regenerating _at all_. Regardless, he needed to kill that thing, and since physical attacks didn't seem to deal any real damage to it, he was going to have to try something different. He swung his arm to the side, shooting a spear of Energy at the creature.

The spear shot right through its skull. It just laid there, completely still, but it soon began to glow and.. grow larger? It shot up so quickly, it would've been hard for the naked eye to spot it.

Shadow stared in disbelief. That Chaos Spear should've killed it, but it hadn't even _scratched_ it. It actually seemed to have supercharged the monster. He was definitely not in a good position. His Energy levels were now dangerously low and because of that, he was beginning to feel tired and sluggish. If his Energy didn't start to replenish soon, he would- Wait. Where the hell did the creature go? He gasped, or _tried_ to, at least, when he felt its talons stab through his back, where his quills had been, and rip into his ribs and lungs. He wanted, _needed_ to scream, but he couldn't. He couldn't do anything. No sound came from his open mouth; he shed no tears. He just hung there, limp, being held up by the claws embedded into him. He felt the knife-like talons burrow further into him. For a moment that was all too brief, his mind had left the void. The demonic creature wasn't there, and he could no longer feel any pain. Instead, it felt as if someone was holding him, and he heard a woman's voice call out his name in distress. He couldn't tell whose voice it was, but he knew for a fact that he'd heard it before. He felt the gentle grip on him tighten, and then..

Pain.

Horrible, indescribable agony was all he could feel. It felt as if something, a vital part of his body, had been ripped in two. He couldn't pinpoint where he was injured. He couldn't concentrate at all, his mind being clouded by the impossibly intense pain he was in. The pain was too great to allow him to move, and he couldn't function at all. He couldn't breathe. His heart couldn't beat. His eyes were unblinking and painfully wide, and when he tried to scream, nothing came out. Except for the red liquid that bubbled up his throat and out of his wide open maw. It trickled down his tan muzzle and reached his chest, staining the white tuft there with a sickly, orange color.

The claws tore out of his back, taking two chunks of red, bleeding flesh with them.

He fell to the hard ground on his stomach. Unable to move, he watched with blurry vision as the remaining blood slid out of his mouth and formed a tiny, red puddle on the rocky surface below him. The two pieces of flesh the creature had been holding were thrown to the ground, in front of his face. Slowly regaining the ability to think, he studied them. He could make out what looked like tubes attached to each piece. He squinted his eyes slightly in thought. _What __**is**__ that?_ He knew he'd seen something like it in pictures before.

Then it hit him.

His eyes widened upon the realization. Those "tubes" were arteries, and the thing in front of him.. was a heart.

_His_ heart.

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**A/N: ****Sorry this took so long. I knew what I wanted to write, but I just couldn't muster up the motivation to start writing it. Anyway, I hope this was worth the wait. Let me know what you think. :)  
**

**Guess what. I still don't own Shadow the Hedgehog. I know, it's shocking. I do have a cat named Shadow, though.  
**


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